Things got better and more interesting in Shanghai. After a brief bout of tonsillitis (which I'm starting to think was more a reaction to the pollution than a virus) we explored a bit more of the city. We did a bit more of Nanjing Rd, the 'High St’ of Shanghai where we couldn’t help ourselves but search out Chinese kids-clothing. More horrific than the designs were the prices – equal to or more than at home. Clearly, the result of 1 child policy. Not that prices seem exorbitant at home but, you have to consider that what you’d pay here for a pair of pants for a 6mth old, you could feed your family for a week. The other highlight of Nanjing Rd was the Shanghai No.1 Food Store – big call, isn’t it?! Darren and I share 2 common loves – food and travel. Put them together and we’re in heaven. And this place did not disappoint. Fresh produce was limited to apples and bananas with few exotics (durian, avocado, pomelo) and all were imported. But the rest was marvellous – a meat section with various cuts and preparations of mainly pork but the odd piece of duck, chicken and quail could be seen. Mind you, it’s not so easy to tell once they’ve been chopped into pieces and BBQ’ed, glazed or deep-fried which seemed to be the popular methods. The squashed pig’s face was a bit perplexing though (see Darren’s blog). The seafood section was also interesting. I’m not schooled in fish varieties (boom boom) but the catch here is varied and quite different to home. And snails seem poplar here too. Big and small ones. The dairy section was mainly imported and uninteresting. The snack section was filled with individual packets of black sesame, peanut, and puffed rice treats. You could buy glutinous rice flour cake things by the gram, dried fungus, mushrooms and fruits of all kinds and crispy noodle cakes somehow infused with crushed peanuts. And then as an apt finale to the mouth-watering and yet bewildering journey through several floors of goods, the top floor is the food court. Here Darren learned the importance of finding out what the dish is BEFORE you order it. I have an app I downloaded before we left home (WAYGO) which allows you to hover your phone over a Chinese menu and it translates the menu to English. As we all know, sometimes direct translations can be misleading and sometimes very funny (yesterday we bought a bun that translated to "Cheese pleased to oblige"). But often they’re not. After figuring out how to order (they had a system of ordering at a pay-station first and then collecting your meal) Darren then decided to use the app on what he thought was a tofu soup. “Tendon Soup” was the translation and the poor boy went hungry.
Mostly, Darren has been able to find foods which are either vegetarian or are palatable for him – mostly street food which we’re both excited to be trying
. We want to be eating what the locals eat, so its pork/vegetable buns for breakfast (which beat the pork buns at home by a long shot) and donuts wrapped in crepes. Aadi has taken to pork sticky rice – of course she has to like the food which is the messiest to eat!
There’s a small, bustling market not far from our hostel which we’ve visited a few times in the mornings now. This is where the locals buy their food for the day. Most wouldn’t have a fridge so meat is bought daily and often killed and gutted in front of you – the bigger animals arrive already sectioned. Some of the sections I didn’t recognise. One of the bits of meat looked like the teats of the pig… but I couldn’t be sure. How would I go about confirming that anyway?! Trotters were common and livers and tongues. Big, round baskets are filled with long, thin fish; shallow plastic tubs, deep with eels, small or large, squirming about; you can buy frogs by the bag and marinated snails by the kilo; The tofu stand had a good 10 different preparations, one which looked quite spongy (fermented perhaps?); there was a lady making dumplings fresh, by hand to be sold by the dozen and another making noodles; We watched with awe as the sticky rice man unravelled the little parcels into a small plastic bag without getting his fingers sticky AT ALL! Eggs come in 4 different varieties, one of them black on the inside (not sure how that happens without it rotting)
. I’ve also noticed at this market that round onions were nowhere to be seen which may explain how I’ve managed to avoid a digestive upset so far. Spring onions are aplenty and used liberally, but thankfully, mainly the green part which I can tolerate. I’m very relieved. And thankfully also, bananas are easy to find so Aadi always has something she can eat.
Buying bananas was a lesson in itself. You could wait all day in the fruit stall waiting to be served. If you want to be served, you have to be a bit more proactive. Everyone else sees you standing there. They know you have been there longer than you, but nobody thinks things work differently in your home country so no-one is going to treat you especially. If you don’t act, you mustn’t be ready to buy, right? So you have to do what the locals do and position yourself in front of the scales and beat everyone else to the scales with your selection. Once I found this out, I found a lot of things easier in China. I found ordering food much easier; I found shuffling along with the crowd to board the escalators at the metro much easier and less frustrating; I found crossing the road less frustrating (you’ve just got to trust that the cars and bikes and scooters don’t want to hit you and will go around you). It’s not being pushy, it’s just taking responsibility for being served, making sure you get on the train, making sure you cross the road, in a world where millions of other people around you have things they want to do too
. But unlike what I saw in India, it’s done here with an awareness and respect for your fellow man.
I remember being on a train in India and being asked by a local of my impressions of his country and telling him how perplexed I was by the often disrespectful behaviour I saw (especially at train stations) and his response was that his country was overpopulated and this caused the mentality. But here in China, a densely populated country, I see a far more orderly society. Pushing and shoving is not accepted here as a way of life.
We also took a brief look at the antiques market in the Old Town – more faux than real ones I suspect but you’d have to know what to look for to be sure. I saw some beautiful hand embroidered pieces of fabric (apparently “very old”) that get up-cycled into pillowcases and table runners but seemed very highly priced for something that could have just as easily been faded by 2 weeks of strong sunlight
. Still, it was an interesting place full of communist paraphernalia and posters, opium pipes, “very old” china, bird cages, door handles… but nothing that I just HAD to have. And it was the end of the day and I’d had enough of being followed around because of Aadi.
She sure gets a lot of attention here. We expected that. But it does get tiring by the end of the day. At the No. Food Store, we had a CROWD of people around us whenever we stopped. In hindsight, I wished I had Darren take a photo of it when it happens because I’m sure you’d think I was exaggerating. Some are happy to dote at a distance or make some gestures to get her attention but sometimes it’s hard to walk away because people can get so insistent. Carrying her in a Chinese baby carrier attracts comment too.
So I don’t think there’s been much structure to this blog – I’ve rambled a bit. But now I must go and do something with our day. We’re in Kaifeng now, a smaller less sophisticated city north-west of Shanghai and we’re here for just a few days. So keep an eye out for the next blog and don’t forget to read Darren’s too. If you’re not signed up to receive alerts when he posts a blog, a friend is posting links to them on our Facebook pages.
Love you all.
XXX
The Very Best No. 2 Shanghai Blog
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Shanghai, Shanghai, China
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2025-02-10
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Kay
2013-04-15
Love all your food adventures, yum!
howard jarvis
2013-04-15
Love the way you are eating your way through china. Babies are the big icebreaker anywhere. Like the photo of the ming bed. Great stuff, keep writing. Cheers, H.
Andrew Merchant
2013-04-15
Excellent blog Jana, keep em coing, sounds like a real adventure over there...